#content warning i am complaining about my dad but thats the only warning specifically

[ugly-sweater]

i have got to complain about this im sorry

so last January my dad turned 65 and retired. he sold his business and moved to west Virginia with his girlfriend (who is not retirement age?? but she worked for him so) (yeah) (she's like 25 years younger than him too) he was apparently planning this for a while because he already had bought a house and gone down to do some work on it before then. he took my grandma out to dinner to break the news to her. she seems fine with it now whenever i talk to her but my brother said she was kinda pissed at first. ok. thats fine whatever. except that i haven't seen or heard from him since my uncle's wedding last june. he did not send any of my siblings a message on christmas. we didn't even know if he was coming up or not. he didn't send me a birthday card - presumably my older brother either but i don't talk to him. my birthday is the beginning of june, fathers day was yesterday. my grandma, my only relative to send me a birthday card, asked me to send him a father's day card. but I'm mad at him! he just retired and dropped off the face of the planet! he wasn't like, a very communicative parent before that, but he sent me birthday cards and i saw him on holidays. i didn't send him a card but i did text him. he's not a big texter but i didn't even get a reply. idk if my younger brother is mad or not its hard to tell. he has resisted my familys nasty temper lol.

but. like of all people he deserves to be the most mad. he lived with my dad up until he sold his house here, he didn't find out where he was moving until like right before it happened. they are like. presumably closer than the rest of my siblings? theyre similar in personality and he's the only one who has lived with my dad since 2006 and like. my brother got him a christmas present and when he found out my dad didn't come up for xmas he kept it for himself like.

to be fair even before he moved he has been especially bad at communication there's lots of family events ive missed because no one told me about them, probably because they expected my dad to. i remember a couple years ago we had a birthday party for grandma in july in his backyard and my brother texted me the Day Of to ask if i was coming and i said no i had no idea it was happening and what did he say? me neither i just got home (when he lived with my dad) and people were here.

like. i know don't diagnose other people with things etc etc but my father is the most undiagnosed autistic man alive. also at my uncles wedding he looked like he had aged 10 years or something it was wild. idk. im mad. my mom sometimes talks about how he was so bad with communication when they were together like he would just show up at his friends house and be like oh hes not here i wanted to see if he wanted to go fishing. like. call??? btw this particular friend owned my dads business and was his boss until he retired and my dad bought it from him, and is like, 25 years older than my dad. also my dad only has one other friend, a guy he's known since high school, they go to car shows together.

idk i don't need my dad to be a lot of things. as far as dads go he is not actively harmful. i don't doubt that he loves me. he just absolutely doesn't know how to maintain a relationship with anyone. and i don't like feeling like its my responsibility to maintain it when he has just like given up or gone off to live in his own little world.

also not to complain about my own autism but i feel so much like there are things people expect me to do but have not explicitly laid them out or shown me how to do them ever so i don't do them and then i feel anxious because i don't know what people expect of me!!! also its sexist because clearly theyre not expecting it of my father. ok im done. might update in September for my younger brothers birthday (hes the baby and hes very doted upon) (the favorite but like. he is my favorite too its not a weird thing)